NBA Live 2006

Giving the superstars even bigger egos.

There are a few things you can count on from each yearly incarnation of NBA Live: new rosters, prettier graphics, and a new gameplay mechanic that helps make the game a bit more like real basketball and less like the traditional stiff flow games often exhibit. This year, that mechanic comes with EA's new "Freestyle Superstars" feature where the top players in the game (roughly 1-3 per team) have special abilities they can perform at the user's command.

For example, say you take control of Shaq in the post. In past Live games, there wasn't much control over whether you would perform a dunk, lay-up, etc. With the new Freestyle Superstars feature, you can choose not only to dunk the ball, but in what fashion. By holding down the left shoulder button and pressing a specific button, you can alternate between hanging on the rim, doing a windmill, and other dunks.

This control system applies to more than just big men, too. Say you're playing as a point guard -- you can choose what type of pass to make, whether to show off or for genuine effectiveness. The idea is to make the best players in the NBA stand out from the rest, and based on our early impressions, it seems to be working quite well.

Also, don't worry about your favorite player getting snubbed and not getting chosen as one of the designated "Superstars" -- EA assures us players will be able to set which NBA stars have these abilities. So while it may seem odd to give Greg Ostertag more moves than Tim Duncan, you'll have that option.

Naturally, there are other new features beyond Freestyle Superstars in Live 06 as well, such as a new graphics engine for the player models and commentary from Steve Kerr, but we'll have to wait to find out more in-depth details on the rest of the game. Head over to out media page to check out new screens of the game, and look out for its release in October.